Dean Street Elem School, Woodstock IL

Original Research by School Decision on Dean Street Elem School

Dean Street Elementary is an early elementary school serving just over five decades of students in preK through fifth grade in Woodstock, a historic county-seat exurb north of Chicago. The school sits in a community that is actively shifting toward new residential growth while maintaining its identity as a preserved 19th-century downtown anchored by the courthouse Square and Metra rail access to Chicago.

The school's student body is roughly split between white and Hispanic students, with smaller populations of multiracial and Black students and a very small Asian enrollment. The school does not report free-and-reduced-price lunch data or English learner counts, and special education enrollment figures are also not publicly available, so a parent seeking detail on those populations should contact the school directly.

State assessment results from the most recent year show uneven performance across subjects. In English language arts, the school's results are stronger: about three in five third graders met or exceeded proficiency, and that rose to roughly six in ten fourth graders and a similar share of fifth graders. Mathematics results are considerably lower. Only about one in three third and fourth graders met proficiency, and that dropped to about one in five fifth graders. Science proficiency, tested at the fifth grade, stood at roughly one in three students. These results place the school in the bottom quartile of overall proficiency when compared against other districts in McHenry County.

A parent may want to look into the school's approach to math instruction and ask what interventions or support systems the school uses to help students strengthen conceptual understanding and problem-solving at the elementary level.

The school sits within Woodstock CUSD 200, which publicly reported a property tax levy reduction for the 2025 cycle, allowing homeowners in the district to see a modest decrease in the school portion of their tax bill. This is the kind of fiscal discipline that matters in high-tax-rate Illinois and McHenry County. The district also launched new Micro-Internship and Internship programs in fall 2025 at the high school level, signaling a shift toward embedded work-based learning and career pathways, though students at Dean Street are several years away from accessing those offerings.

Woodstock itself is in an active development phase after roughly a decade of minimal new residential construction. A large planned subdivision and a downtown multifamily project are moving forward, suggesting meaningful population growth ahead. The city's historic core remains the social and civic anchor, with the Metra station, courthouse Square, libraries, parks, and an event-rich calendar. This is a small-town character set within outer-ring Chicago commuting distance.

Dean Street is a conventional neighborhood elementary school with modest test performance overall and a meaningful literacy strength relative to math. The school serves a genuinely diverse student body in a community at an inflection point between stability and growth.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 336%

School 36% · District 49% · ▼ 13 pts below district

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 22 pts below county median

Grade 433%

School 33% · District 41% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▼ 14 pts below county median

Grade 522%

School 22% · District 32% · ▼ 10 pts below district

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▼ 17 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 360%

School 60% · District 61% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▲ 16 pts above state median · ▲ 2 pts above county median

Grade 457%

School 57% · District 65% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Grade 563%

School 63% · District 68% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Science

Grade 533%

School 33% · District 37% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▼ 4 pts below state median · ▼ 13 pts below county median

This schoolWoodstock CUSD 200, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.